I’ve been given an extra four-and-a-half years of life. By most statistical accounts I should probably have been killed in April 2003 when I had a full-blown seizure while driving my SUV down a windy, twisty parkway. The car hit 80, maybe 90, and we crashed and we survived. Then I was told I had a horrible kind of brain tumor that would soon wipe me away.
But here I am.
And today I am more aware of my mortality than ever before. I understand the last years have been a gift. I understand that I have no idea how many more there will be. Five? Ten? Will I defy the odds and make 20? 50? Like you, I have no idea.
Part of me is haunted by this question – not a new one, a timeless one – what can I do to make my time worthwhile? How do I not waste days or weeks or months? How do I live, as Jonathan Swift put it, every day of my life?
Nothing seems like enough. Write more? Give more? Preach more? Criticize more? Love more? Sacrifice more? Travel more? None of it is enough – none of it amounts to a worthy life. None of it seems worthy of the gift that life is.